I went to the hospital for a check-up yesterday. All is well. I wasn’t there for very long, which was good. I had an ECG first and then saw the cardiologist - not my usual lady cardiologist but one of the doctors I saw when I was in hospital, the one who discharged me, in fact.

He listened to my heart and agreed with me that it’s very loud! Apparently, this is something to do with the valve being made out of pig. I’m not quite sure why the valve being made out of pig should make my heart beat sound louder, but perhaps if it’s made out of thicker ‘material’ than a normal human valve the effect is a bit like when you flick a thicker kind of elastic band. I don’t know, perhaps not, because this doesn’t necessarily produce a louder sound. I don’t know, this was the only explanation I could come up with!

The cardiologist re-iterated that, because it’s made out of biological material, the valve will have to be replaced again at some point in the future, but he thinks that this can be done using keyhole, rather than open-heart, surgery. He was pleased with my progress so far and said that the scar is healing well. He also said that I don’t need to go back and see either him or my usual doctor until this time next year, which was good news. He told me to go and get on with my life, so I’d better had.

On the train, I read the Metro and then I pray. I think about whether my prayers are good enough and if there really is a proper way to pray and if there isn’t why do people write books about how to pray? If the people who write the books are right then I’m not praying very well. Even if they’re wrong I’m well aware that my prayer life is pretty poor. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be having my main prayer time of the day on a train after reading a rubbish newspaper. I can see the cathedral in the distance way before we reach the city. It’s so spiky.

I get to the station and walk to work along the city walls. I’ve hurt my back and I wish I didn’t have to walk. I realise that I’ve walked past the lilac without smelling it, which is a shame, because I like to smell it on the way to work. Turning left after the crossing I walk past the bathroom shop and then past the houses round the corner. There is a lilac here, too, and I remember to take in the smell this time. These houses are very pretty and the gardens look cared for in a way that pleases me.

Into work, under the arch, turn left into the campus. There is a rose bush which has somehow managed to produce both white and pink flowers and some of both colour, like the cream left at the bottom of a bowl of strawberries and cream. Past the lavender which is looking lovely, but I can’t smell it. The funny plant with the furry red flowers (?) still has some red on it, but it’s going over. Its red furriness amuses me and I want to show it to the people I work with, but I don’t think they would be very interested or, indeed, amused.

Work. What do I need to do before 9.00am? Non-work things. Leave birthday present on colleague’s desk. It’s already late. Check home email, look at Facebook, talk to people about their weekends and mine. Who’s on the desk? Have I printed out that notice? No, and, oh dear, it’s 8.57 and I need to be upstairs and pretend I know what I’m doing at 9.00.

Upstairs, a colleague is already there putting boxes together. We have to move lots of books today so that some shelves can be moved a few feet to make a wide-enough fire escape route. I’ve organised a rota of people to move the stuff off and back on to the shelves. There aren’t enough boxes. We leave messages asking for more and in the end someone gets through to the moving man and he brings some more boxes. I’ve gone back downstairs by this point.

While I’ve been upstairs my colleagues have discovered that the rota which I’ve done at least six drafts of so far, does not work. My colleague has written a new version for today, which does work. There is a phone call from upstairs. The moving men are here and they think it would be better to move the books in stages, a set shelves at a time. This is what I wanted to do but I didn’t think the moving men were able to do this. I am confused. Unfortunately, I am also frustrated and feel that I am unable to organise the proverbial drinking session in a brewery.

I head upstairs to chat to the moving men and think about how I must not cry in front of them. That would be embarrassing and I shouldn’t be wanting to cry about this anyway. I am not suitable to have responsibility for anything. Oh, I’m there and they are all waiting for my opinion. Help. It’s OK, they have really decided anyway and what they want to do is what I wanted to do originally so we will do that. Excellent. I don’t cry and I pretend that I’m professional even though I think I’m only just being polite. I hope I haven’t made the moving men cross, but they don’t look cross. Phew. I escape back downstairs, feeling a bit better, and go and report the change of plan to various people who need to know.

I find out that this rota or that rota is wrong several times during the next few hours. At 11.30 I have a meeting. I’ve realised that, following my current rota I’m not going to get a lunch break. Whoops. Neither is my colleague. Double whoops, but I didn’t know she was going to this meeting. She says she’s going for lunch at 2.00. This sounds like a good plan. We go for break together and whinge about the management team. I learn things I don’t like the sound of. Oh dear. Why does nothing seem to get any better and why do certain members of the management team think that Reader Services have an infinite amount of time and so many staff that we don’t have enough work to do? Why? Why? Why? I am cross.

We go to the meeting. It was interesting because it was something new, but we were left wondering why we were there when clearly the managers are going to make all the decisions and just pretend to listen to our opinions.

Upstairs again. When I get there some of the management team are present and everyone is standing around discussing whether or not we’ve left enough room between the shelves and the tables. We decide to ask the Health and Safety man, which means that we can’t proceed until we’ve done so. At least this means we can have lunch at the proper time. Hooray.

Three of us walk into town together at lunch time, after we have a gathering in one of our offices to have another whinge about the lack of organisation at the Library of Doom. It’s nice outside. I go to the chocolate shop, which is always a pleasure. It takes me too long to choose things, though. I’m choosing for someone else and I can’t remember what he doesn’t like. Hoping for the best, I buy the chocolate and want to eat it myself. I meet up with my colleagues in the cathedral grounds and we head back to work, where I buy some sandwiches.

I arrive back in the office, plonk my bags down and then one of my colleagues appears to say that the fire officer has come to check upstairs. I haven’t really finished lunch, but I think I’d better go with him now, even though he thoughtfully offers to come back later. Good news, we have left enough room. We may proceed. I let people know then go back to my office and wrap the chocolates and eat my sandwiches.

I can’t remember what happened between then and 3.30. I think several revisions of the rota were involved. I also attempted to fill in more of next week’s rota. At 3.30 it’s break time but I make the mistake of popping round to my line manager’s office to give her a message and she asks me to come in and sit down. Fatal. We talk about the latest project to be dumped on Reader Services and I get cross in what I hope is a professional and restrained manner. Twenty minutes later I go and get some coffee which I don’t have time to drink.

I’m on the desk at 4.00pm. More rota revisions! More attempts at filling in next week’s rota. More popping upstairs (even though I’m not supposed to leave the desk). More other stuff I can’t remember. I drink my (cold) coffee in the end. It’s OK, I don’t like cold tea, but I don’t mind cold coffee, I tell my colleague.

5.30pm. Home time. I log out of the computer at the desk and go to the office to get my stuff. I walk out the door.

While walking from work to the station I think about the day, my colleagues, myself, about how God sees me and how I see myself, amongst other things. I stop to read the notice on the comic shop window. They’ve moved. I hope they’re alright. 

On the train I think about this blog post. I think about making some notes, but in the end I just listen to some music to try and drown out the noisy teenagers further down the carriage. I hum along to some tunes, hoping that no one can hear me. I arrive home and Mr C has to leave for a  meeting almost straightaway, so I sit down here and write. This evening I have also looked at other places on the Internet, eaten a salad and drunk some apple juice.

Sorry, I’m being a bit lazy with my blog at the moment. I stole this from Jennifer. There were 40 things, but I didn’t understand three of them.

1. My uncle once: threw a surprise birthday party for his wife.

2. Never in my life: have I eaten a snail.

3. When I was five: I had blonde hair.

4. High School was: not what I wanted it to be.

5. I will never forget: other people’s kindness, or at least I will try not to.

6. I once met: a labrador crossed with a chihuahua. She was a very sweet dog.

7. There’s this girl I know who: is afraid of herself. 

8. Once, at a bar: I watched my friend sing karaoke and had a conversation on paper with my future husband.

9. By noon, I’m usually: ready to eat some lunch.

10. Last night: I wrote some of this post, ate a pork pie and went to bed.

11. If I only had: more wisdom I would be a better human being.

12. Next time I go to church: I will attempt to play my flute in public for the first time in about three months. I’d better practise first.

13. What worries me most: is other people.

14. When I turn my head left, I see: Mr C’s chair, bookshelves, the front room window. It’s evening and the sky is that strange mix of dark and sunny at the same time.

15. When I turn my head right, I see: The setee with the blue star cushion I got as a birthday present from a friend. Next to this is the round table with a photograph of my friend H and her husband at our wedding. She was my bridesmaid. Next to that photograph there’s a photo of Mr C’s mum. Behind the photographs is Bob, the plant I have had for ten years.  I’m not sure what sort of plant he is. He was called something else by his previous owner, one of my housemates at university, but I can’t remember what it was.

16. You know I’m lying when: I tell you I don’t lie.

17. What I miss most about the eighties: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds.

18. If  I was a character in Shakespeare, I’d be: Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing, according to the BBC’s Which Shakespeare Character Are You? quiz. I wish. Beatrice is probably my favourite Shakespeare character and Much Ado About Nothing is my favourite Shakespeare play, mainly because I love the Kenneth Branagh film version. Hamlet comes a close second. Could it just be a coincidence that these are the two plays I studied for A Level English Literature and therefore really the only two plays I know anything much about? (This despite having done half a degree in English Literature with a whole, horrible, module on Shakespeare. We had to read a play a week. I don’t think I read any. I didn’t do very well in that module, which jolly well served me right).

19. By this time next year: I’d like things to be better than they are now, of course.

20. A better name for me would be: Lilian.

21. I have a hard time understanding: maths, politics, conflict, my line manager, Mr C’s war games, my dad. Lots and lots of things.

22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: do a PhD.

23. You know I like you if: you think I like you.

24. If I ever won an award, the first person I’d thank would be: someone appropriate.

25. Take my advice, never: do what I did.

26. My ideal breakfast is: a lovely traditional English cooked breakfast. Sausages, egg, bacon, mushrooms, fried bread, hash browns. Yum.

27. A song I love, but do not have is: The Night I Heard Caruso Sing, by Everything But The Girl.

28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest: you take a walk in the surrounding countryside.

29. Why won’t people: put their litter in the bin?

30. If you spend the night at my house: you will sleep in a small room with lots of books in it.

31. I’d stop my wedding for: nothing. Too late, I’m already married.

32. The world could do without: so many things.

33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: eat one.

34. My favourite blonde is: a golden retriever.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: slugs.

36. If I do anything well, it’s: a surprise to me.

37. And by the way: I wish I’d given more interesting answers in this list.

I’m pleased to report that the garden is looking quite happy at the moment, despite me not watering or feeding things on a regular basis. I took a few photographs last night, mainly because I wanted to record the momentous event of there being a ripe strawberry on the plant. Which I later ate. I did offer some to Mr C, but he didn’t want any. I think he was just being nice and letting me eat it all.

The plants in the window are (apart from the Begonia (the pink one)) peppers that have had to be reared inside because of danger of slug. I’m hoping that they’re now big and strong enough to go outside, so I’m planning to plant them out into bigger pots over the weekend.

The tomatoes (right) are doing quite well at the moment. They’re becoming quite busy and I tonight noticed a couple of flowers on the one on the step, which means tomatoes should soon be on their way.

This is my first attempt at growing a courgette, from a plant a friend from church gave me. I had two plants originally, but, as I think I’ve said before, one got eaten by slugs, but this one survived. It still gets nibbled, but I keep it indoors at night, so hopefully it will escape major damage.

The strawberries seem to be doing well, so far. Apparently it’s only when the fruit is ripe that slugs and other such things attack, so I will have to look our for slimy things and scare them away somehow. Hopefully, if I pick the fruit quite soon after it’s ready I will get to it before the slugs do.

I’ve been trying to grow more flowers this year. I have no idea what the flowers in the pot are called, apart from the Fuchsia , which I don’t think you can actually see on this photo. I think the red ones might be Busy Lizzies.

 Like wise, I don’t know what the blue flowers in the photo on the right are called. They’re very prolific and in danger of one day taking over the entire garden, but I like them so I’ve let them be so far.                           

The Lavetera (left) is blooming well at the moment. I look forward to this coming into flower - the flowers are so lovely.

Sarah tagged me, so here are my answers (none of the lists are in any particular order):

What I was doing five years ago:

Hmm, 2003. I was just coming to the end of the taught part of my librarianship course and probably trying to decide what on earth I was going to write about for my dissertation. It was nice weather that year, if I remember rightly, so I expect I was also spending lots of time on Aberystwyth beach! I don’t have any pictures of the lovely beach that I can put on here unfortunately - no digital camera at the time. However, it seems I scanned in a couple of pictures of sunsets, so you can see those instead:

Not sure why the second one is so small (or the first one is so big)! I didn’t do a very good job of scanning really, did I? Still it was a long time ago.

Five things on today’s to do list:

It’s evening, so these are things that were on my to-do list, which didn’t really exist, but I’m making it up for the purpose of this blog post.

1. Finish this blog post
2. Finish the help sheet on cash transactions I started last week
3. Do the ironing
4. Meet S for lunch
5. Buy more paracetomol tablets

I did three of these things.

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Chocolate(s)
2. Dried apricots
3. Cheese
4. Peanuts
5. Ready salted crisps

I really do like dried apricots and didn’t just put them in so I look like I eat at least some healthy food, I promise!

Five jobs I’ve had:

1. Cleaning Esso tokens
2. Opening envelopes
3. Graduate Trainee Librarian
4. Senior Library Assistant
5. Assistant Librarian, Reader Services

Five things I would do if I was a billionaire:

1. Give most of it away to charities, leaving enough left over to:
2. Give enough to friends and family to enable them to, as Joleo says, achieve what they want to achieve
3. Buy our house
4. Buy a saxophone and a cello (does that count as two things?)
5. Do a PhD in something theological that involves learning Hebrew

I don’t know! Just thinking about the billionaire question made my head hurt! (Not literally).

I also don’t know who to tag, but if you want to write your own version of Four Five Things please do so. 

Despite evidence to the contrary, I do sometimes plan my blog posts in advance. I wrote some notes on the train today (12 June). Here’s what the notes turned into:

This morning I was pondering on why it is that sometimes we wake up feeling happy and other times we wake up feeling, if not exactly sad, something a quite a long way away from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Yesterday I woke up feeling optimistic, looking forward to the day, about as near to happy as I’ve been for a while. The feeling remained with me for most of the day - I remember thinking on the way home that I felt that I’d been given a great big gift. I pictured it in my mind, a big box tied up with ribbon. The box and ribbon were both pale green, I have no idea why. I’m not even sure what was in the box. Life in general, I think.

Today I woke up non-committal and so far I’ve had a day when I’ve felt that nothing I’ve said to anyone has been quite right, I’ve been restless, looking for things that aren’t there, wanting something other than the portion offered to me. I felt like I was only half wherever I was. Concentration was not my strong point today. I don’t know whether it ever is!

Unfortunately, the lack of focus is continuing and I don’t really know where I’m going with this blog post! It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, by any means.

I quite often write on the train home, although today was the first time I’ve written anything on the train since I went back to work. But I suppose that’s only been a few days. At the end of busy days I tend to have a lot of thoughts going round my head and I often feel better once I’ve written them down. Sometimes I’ve written out what I wish I’d said to people, what I really wanted to say to them but either didn’t think of at the time or didn’t have the nerve to say. It’s probably just as well that I don’t say such things a lot of the time. Seeing them written down helps me to realise that! I write about how people make me feel, how I feel about situations, how I feel about myself. It’s all quite narcissistic really! Sometimes I just write down facts about what happened during the day.

I have several notebooks, most of them A6 size, that I’ve used over the years. I’ve never been very successful in keeping a proper diary, but plenty of my life has been committed to paper in one way or another.

I started the practice of carrying a notebook around with me when I was at university, mainly because I found that (in the days before mobile phones, just) leaving notes for people was the easiest way to contact them if they weren’t in. Like most students we had boards on our doors for leaving messages on, and this was my preferred method of communication at the time. I got quite excited about email when I first tried it. I still find it vaguely exciting now, which is probably a bit worrying. However, paper-based notes were still my device of choice during my university days.

As well as writing messages, the notebooks got used and still get used for a variety of tasks. Writing down recipes, shopping lists, [It's now 16 June] blog post plans, venting. Mr C and I had one of our earliest conversations using my old purple (or was it blue?) notebook. We were in a noisy nightclub, having been to see one of our friends and colleagues doing karaoke. It was so noisy that he couldn’t hear me so we ended up writing down everything we wanted to say.  I believe that, as well as this precious memory, the blue notebook also contains Stephen Fry’s autograph. Unfortunately, I kept the blue notebook in my coat pocket and one day it rained and the poor notebook got wet and Mr Fry’s signature ran. Alas. (I had a black Parker-type coat with huge pockets. It used to be my brother’s and I loved it, mainly because of the huge pockets and the furry lining).

So far my current notebook has in it several plans for blog posts that never came to fruition, some rather miserable musings, a day’s diary entry from when we went to Malaysia (I do try to keep a ‘proper’ diary if I’m visiting another country. I mean to write the entries up as blog posts but it never seems to happen), a list of my pins and needles-related symptoms (with dates), notes from several church-related meetings and some notes from meetings with my managers concerning my return to work.

I keep most of my notebooks, although some of them end up with so few pages in that they end up in the bin. Some pages get ripped out because I give them to someone else, a lot used to get ripped out and left as notes in my pre-mobile days. Some get ripped out and then torn into many tiny pieces, because what I’ve written can never, ever be seen by anyone else! Usually such writings also need to be destroyed for cathartic reasons. I recently kept a whole, terrible, outpouring for months and months and it was only when I finally decided (with some help) to tear out the pages, rip them up and put them in the bin that I began to feel properly better about the situation concerned.

I sometimes look through old notebooks and it’s interesting to find that it’s often the every day things like people’s phone numbers, shopping lists, to-do lists and the like that reveal much about my life at the time. Such practical things possibly reveal more than my ramblings about how I was feeling, which are often quite arbitrary and sometimes make for uncomfortable reading, apart from anything else.

I suppose my blog is rather like an extended online version of one of my notebooks. It’s probably as near to a journal as I’ve been for a while, in terms of writing at length about my life or things I’m thinking about. Talking of writing at length, this post is getting rather long, so I will stop in a sentence or two. I meant to write about feelings and I ended up writing about notebooks! Never mind.

I’m plugged into a 24-hour ECG monitor (otherwise known as an Ambulatory Electrocardiogram) at the moment. I had an interesting weekend, during which I experienced some strange heart-beats, so though I’d better ring the hospital. One of the good things about the hospital I attend is that they have a specialist team who deal with adults with congenital heart defects, and they don’t mind if you ring them up at ungodly hours or at the weekend. The nurse I spoke to suggested that if I was worried (which of course I was, this is me, after all) I should go to the local hospital and ask for an ECG to be done (usually they only take about five minutes, when they’re not being ambulatory) so that the results could be faxed to the congenital heart specialist people and they could check to make sure things were alright.

So, Mr C and I trotted off to the local hospital. Unfortunately, it being a Sunday the only place we could get an ECG done was in the Accident and Emergency Unit. We had to wait about three hours, which is probably not too bad by A & E standards, but was long enough. The poor doctor was quite relieved when he realised he didn’t have to do a full assessment of me - I’m too complicated and he was too busy, I think. I wasn’t complaining as it would have involved blood tests - and that we only wanted the ECG done.  The doctor faxed it off and also spoke to someone from the congenital heart team at the hospital. The ECG result was fine, but we arranged that I would go in to see my Clinical Nurse Specialist from the Adult Congenital Heart Unit today.

I had another ECG done this morning and this was also fine. The nurse is not at all worried by my strange heart-beats. She thinks that they are just normal ectopic beats (scroll down the page), which everyone experiences at some point, but because my heart is beating in a different way to what I was used to I’m noticing them more, especially as my heart-beat is now so loud! As I am obviously worried about it she booked the 24-hour ECG and is also going to book me in for an ultrasound scan (somewhat confusingly otherwise known as an Echo) just to make doubly sure that all is well.

I’d already emailed the nurse about the pins and needles and she had asked my consultant about it, but neither of them think that the pins and needles are related to my heart, so the pins and needles mystery continues.

Anyway, the nurse is very happy with my progress and is fine about me going back to work. Unfortunately, I’m still going to be wearing the ECG monitor when I go and see the Occupational Health person tomorrow and I’m a bit worried that its presence might make them think that I shouldn’t be at work. I shall make sure to tell them that the relevant medical professionals say that its alright for me to go back and hope that helps them make their decision!

Just talking to the nurse today made me feel better. She’s been doing her job for a long time and understands all the concerns that patients have, and she’s not afraid to ask questions that need to be talked about, such as ‘are you afraid that you’re going to die because of this?’ even if you don’t broach that subject yourself because you think she’ll think you’re silly. I am sometimes afraid that I’ll die because my heart will pack up suddenly (or indeed slowly). More often I don’t think about dying as such, but I have related but peripheral fears. I’m afraid that my heart will go wrong again, that I’ll break it somehow and ruin all the work the surgeons did, that I’ll never get back to ‘normal’, that I’ll overdo things, that I won’t do enough, that I’ll waste the chances I’ve been given, that I’ll let people down. I know some of these things might sound odd or silly, but they’re an illustration of the way my mind’s been working.  It was a relief to talk to someone who has the relevant medical knowledge as well as a good understanding of the emotional side of having a heart condition and having and recovering from surgery. Clinical Nurse Specialists deserve lots of pay and chocolate as far as I’m concerned!

• I am now back at work (part-time).
• I don’t have vitamin B12 deficiency, which is good, but I still don’t know what is causing the strange pins and needles, tingling, etc.
• The pins and needles, tingling, etc is a lot better but it has still not gone away. I went back to the doctor today and she just said to come back if it gets worse.
• The tomatoes are doing well, the peppers are being eaten by the nasty slugs again.
• The spring onions are still very small.
• The strawberries are coming along nicely.
• We ate a home-grown radish in our salad for tea tonight!
• Next-door’s cat is in our garden.
• I dreamt about many cats the other night. It was quite nice, but odd.

 Sarah copied Ben and I’m copying Sarah. Please feel free to copy me in any way you feel you would like to. The easiest ways to be like me are to waffle nonsense, be socially inept on a regular basis, whinge a lot, be indecisive and watch too much TV.

Anyway, I’m going to stick to the Desert Island Discs rules and only choose eight songs. So there. In no particular order:

1. Last Goodbye: Jeff Buckley
   This song is quite possibly the most potentially cathartic song I’ve ever heard. Good for attempting to cope with anger, sadness, self-pity and other nasty things. Favourite lyric: “Kiss me out of desire, baby, not consolation”. Ideal volume: As loud as possible, while still being considerate to others. If you’re on a desert island that probably won’t be a problem, unless there are any timid animals around. 
2. Someone To Fall Back On: Jason Robert Brown
   My kind of love song, if that’s what it is. You can listen to it on Mr Brown’s website if you want to. Favourite lyric: Every line. Ideal volume: Quiet to moderate.
3. All I Want For Christmas Is You: Mariah Carey
   I might be on the desert island at Christmas, you never know. Great for singing along to, cheerful (sort of), silly and fun. The best non-religious Christmas song ever. Favourite lyric: Erm…”I don’t want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need, I don’t care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree…” Ideal volume: Loud enough to drown out my singing.
4. You’re The Top: Cole Porter
   I could pass time on the island by trying to learn all the words. Funny, clever and Porter-ish. Favourite lyric: Oh, how can I possibly choose? I like the introductory bit quite a lot: “At words poetic I’m so pathetic…” etc. Ideal volume: At sufficient volume to be able to hear every word.
5. Somewhere: Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
   I would like to have chosen the whole of West Side Story, but I didn’t think that would be allowed. Favourite lyric: “Hold my hand and we’re halfway there”. Ideal volume: Not ridiculously loud.
6. Hark the Herald Angels Sing: Charles Wesley. As performed by Revelation Rock-Gospel Choir(s).
   Not my very favourite carol (although it is one of them), but I just love this arrangement. The harmonies are, as someone younger and trendier than me might say, “lush”. I also love the fact that someone coughs just in the wrong place on the recording. Favourite lyric: “Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace, Hail the Son of Righteousness, Light and life to all He brings, Risen with healing in His wings…” Ideal volume: Nice and joyously loud.
7. All The Things You Are: Music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
   Because it is one of the most beautiful songs in the English language. Favourite lyrics: “You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long, You are the breathless hush of evening that trembles on the brink of a lovely song…” And the rest. Ideal volume: Moderate.
8. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots: Pt. 1: The Flaming Lips
   A very odd and quite silly song, with happy memories attached to it. Favourite lyrics: “Oh, Yoshimi, they don’t believe me, but you won’t let those robots eat me…” Ideal volume: This ideal volume thing is a bit daft, isn’t it? I don’t know why I started it. I don’t think the favourite lyrics thing was a particularly brilliant plan either, but it’s too late now.

So, there you have it. A list of songs. They’re not necessarily my all-time favourite songs, because I don’t think I would ever be able to decide upon those, but they’re songs that I think would help if I was ever stuck on a desert island, and they are all (in my opinion) very good indeed. Yes, even All I Want For Christmas Is You is good in its own way. There are many other songs I could add to the list, but I said I would stick to eight songs so I have.

It’s not raining today. It has been quite grey for most of the day, with occasional patches of sunshine. I am sorry to say that I haven’t been for any walks today. I went for my blood test this morning and spent quite a lot of time standing around waiting, but I don’t think that counts. You have to go and take a number, like you do at delicatessen counters in supermarkets. When I arrived they were on number 35 and I was number 79. I went and had a cup of tea and read the papers. I think I must have become more used to blood tests now, because, although I was scared, I was calm.

You will probably not be entirely surprised to learn that I’m spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about my pins and needles, which have still not gone away. I think they’re getting better, but sometimes I’m not sure! The blood test results will take about a week to come back, apparently. I hope it is ‘just’ Vitamin B12 deficiency, because there are several more horrible things it could be! Maybe it is just a Random Weird Thing. I have had odd pins and needles before, after I had my catheter last year, but whether or not they are related to heart things I don’t know. Personally, I don’t think so.

I am now getting  to the stage where I am quite desperate to go back to work! I think it would help with the state of my mind, which might sound really, really, stupid, considering how stressful work can be, but at the moment I feel that (almost) anything is preferable to being on my own most of the time, worrying and wasting time. I’m aware that there are myriad activities I could be doing that wouldn’t be a waste of time, or at least not so much of one, but I have no motivation to do them. I’m not helping myself, am I? See, I do know that.

I need to start making the dinner.